The Birth of Jazebel

**Russia – Moscow Twenty-five years earlier**



“Are you really not going to want to see her?” The woman lying on the bed, her body sweaty and exhausted from the effort of bringing the child into the world, keeps her eyes fixed on the window. “Morgana, don’t you want to look at your daughter, holding her in your arms?”
“What color is she?” The low, emotionless words escape her lips.
“She took after her father...” The slow whimper of the baby in the woman’s lap, standing beside the bed, is heard as the child stirs in her arms and yawns. “Look at her, see what a beautiful thing you brought into the world...”
Morgana can’t keep her. She had hoped until the last second that the child would be born white. If her skin tone was the same as her mother’s, Morgana knew she might be able to keep the baby. But now, the sentence had been handed down by the girl’s skin color. Her master would find out that she had gotten pregnant by her submissive, that she had disobeyed him and slept with another man.
“Get her away from me, Freire!” Morgana growls through her teeth and tightly closes her eyes, turning her face to the other side, refusing to look at the newborn in Freire’s arms. “My daughter was born dead...”
“But...”
“MY DAUGHTER WAS BORN DEAD!” Morgana screams louder, startling the baby, who begins to cry.
Morgana closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, knowing that the sound of her daughter’s cries will never leave her mind, that she will never forget. She can’t keep the girl, not when she knows that her master will kill the baby if he learns of her existence, just as he did with the child’s father.
“Shhh, no, no, sweetie... It’s all right.” Freire tries to calm the baby, looking from the child to the mother lying on the bed, her face turned to the wall.
“Give her to me, Freire.” The arms covered with white silk gloves of the serious woman stretch out, taking the baby in her arms. “Come here, little one...”
The large green eyes fixate on the baby, and she caresses her cheek while cradling her in her arms.
“Let me take care of your destiny, little one.” The woman’s voice comes out slowly, keeping her gloved finger’s caress on the baby’s face.
“What do you intend to do? You know he’s coming. He’ll probably arrive tomorrow. How will you explain the baby’s disappearance to him?” Freire asks, seriously, looking at her.
“The same way I explained why I brought Morgana to my house to have her baby here, to take care of her fragile health,” the woman responds, not taking her eyes off the baby. “And because of her fragile health, the baby was born dead, thus we will close the little love story of Morgana once and for all.”
“And you, Morgana?” Freire calls her, speaking with concern. “Are you really going to abandon your daughter...”
Morgana says nothing, remaining silent, feeling what’s left of her heart shatter completely. She remembers Zilu’s eyes, black and beautiful, looking at her with so much passion, just as she remembers finding his cold, lifeless body discarded in the middle of the room, with her serious master standing near the body, staring at her. He had asked if she had slept with the submissive. Morgana wanted to say yes, that her heart had never loved anyone as much as it had loved the man who lay lifeless. But the little secret growing inside her belly was what made her silence, denying the question. She knew that if he found out, he would kill both her and the child. She lied to him, manipulating him days later when she told him about the pregnancy. She made him believe it was his, that inside her belly the child of a master was being conceived, not that of a submissive. But Zilu’s skin color was a constant worry because she knew there was a great chance the child would be born with the same black skin tone she loved in Zilu. That’s why, on the eve of giving birth, she, along with her friends, maneuvered fate and fled to Moscow to give birth to the baby in a place where her master’s eyes could not see, to have time to know what the child’s fate would be if she was born with dark skin tone.
“The daughter of my master was born dead,” Morgana lets the words slip out and takes a deep breath, feeling the warm tear roll down her face.
“He will want to see a body...” Freire says, nervously, looking worriedly at the woman standing in the middle of the room, holding the baby.
“I will arrange that, as well as the future of the child. She will leave with you right now, Freire; there’s a car waiting for you at the back of the house. My driver will take you to the hangar, where a chartered jet awaits you. It will take you to the orphanage...” She takes a deep breath, looking at the baby.
“You’re going to leave her there... Morgana, do you know what will happen to your daughter?” Freire looks at her, lost.
“Do you know what will happen to her if Morgana’s master finds her?” The woman with the child in her arms walks toward Freire, looking at her seriously. “She will be fed to his dogs while he forces Morgana to watch, only to kill her afterward.”
“But still, to hand her over...”
“Morgana knew what the child’s fate would be if she were born black like her father. She made a deal with me; I did my part and took her out of her master’s house so she could have the baby without him seeing. ” She extends the baby to Freire and turns her face to Morgana, looking at her.
“You gave your daughter to her, Morgana?” Freire supports the baby, rocking her and looking at the woman lying on the bed.
“The daughter of Morgana and her master was born dead.” The sound of the green-eyed woman’s footsteps is heard as she walks to the door of the room and opens it. “The baby in her arms is mine, my... my Jezebel, born of the betrayal and manipulation of two submissives. When she is ready, she will return to me.”
Freire looks one last time at Morgana, seeing her indifferent to the child’s fate. She takes a deep breath and pulls a blanket from the foot of the bed, throwing it over her arms to cover the child.
“I don’t want to be part of this...” Freire raises her face to the woman standing in the doorway, who stares at her.
“Take her, Freire, and as a gift, I give you little Mina... Keep what you desire and deliver what belongs to me in return!” The woman steps aside and points outside. “Now, go.”